Thank you for attending the 2017 Our Promise Thank You Breakfast! We appreciate everything you do to make the Our Promise campaign successful.

The event honored our committed and hard-working department and agency Chairs, Vice Chairs and other campaign volunteers, who worked to spread the word about the opportunity to give back, and the 31,000 state employees who contributed to Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work.

Thanks to the generosity of state workers, the 2017 campaign raised $6.1 million! View full campaign results here.

We hope you enjoyed the Thank You Breakfast event. Please take a few moments to let us know how the event was. Give your feedback here.

Photos from the event are posted on Facebook. Tag your friends and colleagues!

During the last Our Promise campaign, I elected to contribute through a monthly deduction to the United Service Organizations (USO). For those of you that don’t know, the mission of the USO is to “strengthen America’s military service members by keeping them connected to family, home and country, throughout their service to the nation”. Today, USO facilities can be found in airports and near American military bases around the world. Additional information regarding the USO can be found at: https://www.uso.org/about

Caring for California. What does this mean to you? What do you want to see in your community?

We all have a vision for our neighborhoods, our city and our state. Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work is your opportunity to support causes and nonprofits that will help your vision become a reality.

Guests from the public and nonprofit sectors came together on August 30 at the State Capitol to kick off the 60th anniversary of the Our Promise giving campaign! State employees were able to visit with many participating nonprofits, hear from statewide elected officials, plus more!

Secretary Marybel Batjer, Government Operations Agency, was awarded the Augustus Freeman Hawkins Award of Distinguished Merit in Community Service at the Our Promise Thank You Breakfast event on March 1, 2017.

The award was presented by Tabitha Angel, Director of Our Promise. The award celebrates the vision of the man who created Our Promise, Augustus Freeman Hawkins.

Thank you for attending the 2016 Our Promise Thank You Breakfast! We appreciate everything you do to make the Our Promise campaign a huge success.

The event honored our committed and hard-working department and agency Chairs, Vice Chairs and other campaign volunteers, who worked to spread the word about the opportunity to give back, and the 32,000 state employees who contributed to Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work.

Bari Schlesinger was once unable to pick up items that she dropped on the floor. She once relied on others to open doors. She once feared going places alone.

Thanks to the help of Canine Companions for Independence, Bari no longer strains herself to retrieve dropped items, she doesn’t need to wait for strangers to come along and open doors, and gone are the days of anxiety and doubt. Bari is now a self-assured and independent individual with her wonderful Canine Companions assistance dog, Axel III, provided to her free of charge.

Growing up without many basic resources can be a burden to children who come from impoverished families. This struggle has always been close to my heart since I myself grew up in a single parent household where we struggled to get by on just the basic necessities. When I became an adult I realized that I had the power to do something good that could help make a child’s life a little easier. As an 18 year youth sports coach I realized that I had collected so much baseball gear, and I knew that I could put it to good use.

When John Albarran lost his sight to glaucoma, he quickly figured out how to move forward in his life. By the age of 17, before he had graduated from high school, Albarran was a Guide Dogs of America graduate. He is currently partnered with his fourth dog from the school, a female yellow Labrador Retriever named Julep.

We all like to think that we are safe and secure, but one incident or accident can surprise and shock us. In 1980, my father had a massive stroke, and my mother was instantly transformed into a 24-hour caregiver for a person who had severe speech and mobility issues.

Our Promise: California State Employees Giving at Work is a campaign that allows employees to give to a variety of charitable organizations that are vitally important to the community. I am a member and in great support of Our Promise because I have had five kidney transplants.

I am Ken Roberts Sr., a Lieutenant with the California Highway Patrol Commercial Vehicle Section; I have been with the Department for over 17 years. When he was 2 months old, my son Ken Roberts Jr. had emergency surgery for pyloric stenosis.